Manny Machado is reportedly signing with the Padres, and White Sox fans are reportedly upset. I’d check my sources on the latter of those two, but I don’t want to be too much of a jackass right now. Instead, let’s talk about how strange the White Sox’ “pursuit” of Machado was.
Editor’s note: What follows is fairly conspiratorial and is purely speculation on the part of NIT Stu. I must say, though, it makes sense.
Since 2016, the White Sox’ front office performance has been encouraging to the team’s fans. Leadership recognized the need for a rebuild and executed, flipping Adam Eaton, Chris Sale, and Jose Quintana, just to name a few of the assets they turned into expected future value. They saved money on payroll, loaded up their farm system, and watched as all of their intra-division competition, save the Indians, disintegrated.
The next step was logical. Break open the piggy bank and sign one of the best players in baseball, a 25-year old shortstop with four full major league seasons (and two partial ones) under his belt in which he averaged roughly six WAR per full season.
Throughout the offseason, it seemed the White Sox had every intention of doing just this, and as the Yankees seemingly demurred, all signs were pointing the White Sox’ way.
Then, things got a little weird.
On January 16th, two prominent baseball journalists (Bob Nightengale and Buster Olney) reported that the White Sox’ offer to Machado stood at $175M over seven years. This sounded low to many following Machado’s free agency, especially given very public reports of the Nationals having offered Bryce Harper (a comparable free agent, albeit seemingly valued slightly more highly than Machado) $300M over ten years.
Fans and journalists weren’t the only ones who came across as surprised by the reported offer. Machado’s agent, Dan Lozano, took the unprecedented step of issuing the following statement (taken from MLBTradeRumors):
Huh. That’s a lot.
It seems Lozano’s fury is directed mainly at Nightengale and Olney, but the statement can be read in a variety of ways. After all, Nightengale’s and Olney’s reports presumably came from somewhere, as Lozano notes, and the source or sources presumably had some sort of motivation to share what they shared. Given Lozano’s reaction, he likely perceived the report as an attempt to drive down Machado’s value in the market by signaling a low contending offer to other teams and the public.
Now, it’s possible these sources came from an organization other than the White Sox. But that seems unlikely, given that Nightengale and Olney, both professional journalists (not blog boys like me), confidently reported the offer in question. Presumably, they’d want to verify it with one of the two parties involved, and it’s safe to say Machado’s camp was not the one leaking the details, errant or otherwise.
Today, after Machado signed for a reported ten years at $300M (with an opt-out after five years), Ken Rosenthal reported the following:
Huh.
So the White Sox allegedly were offering Machado more money per year to sign with them, and had so many incentives in there that they could have raised the contract’s total value to 140% of its incentive-less state?
First of all, I’m no expert, but that sounds like a lot of incentives. How many were things like “You get $10M if you colonize Mars while under contract”?
Secondly, that annual value difference is over 10% more per year. I’m assuming there was no Machado-friendly opt-out involved?
Third, that’s a very specific number, again relayed to the press. This time, it’s possible it was coming from Machado’s camp (“Fine, we’ll tell you what the White Sox actually offered”), but what makes more sense is, again, the scenario in which it came from the White Sox (“Hey, look what we offered him!”).
So, the question has to be asked:
What the hell were the White Sox doing?
The best-case scenario, if you’re a White Sox fan who wants to have faith in your team’s front office, is that they really misread Machado’s market and tried to low-ball him through the press. That’s best-case, but it’s still pretty bad. It signals incompetence and bad faith.
Much worse is the possibility that the White Sox had no intention of signing Machado unless it was for an enormous bargain, and think that by throwing out the $350M number they can make it look like Machado just wanted to play somewhere with a nice climate. This, like the best-case scenario, signals incompetence and bad faith, but it also signals disrespect to fans, and it calls into question whether the White Sox want to win, or if they just want to look like they’re trying to win.
More information might come out. Or it might not. Either way, it looks like South Side fans are getting Tim Anderson’s great glove and weak bat at short in 2019. Meanwhile the well-stocked piggy bank collects dust, as do a whole bunch of empty seats.
